The city of Abel Beth Maacah was located at an important juncture between several ancient Near Eastern cultures. During the Bronze Age, it was a threshold between the Levant and the major empires of Syria and Mesopotamia. In the Iron Age, the Biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah was a crossroads between Israel, Phoenicia and Syria, and it may have served as the capital of the Aramean kingdom of Maacah (Joshua 12:5; 2 Samuel 10:8).

The site features an extensive Bronze Age occupation centuries before it became a prominent Hebrew Bible-era city. In 2 Samuel 20:14-22, Sheba son of Bichri took refuge in the city after calling for revolt against King David. Joab’s negotiations with a “wise woman” of the city resulted in Sheba’s beheading. Abel Beth Maacah (referred to as Abel Maim in 2 Chronicles 16:4) was later conquered by Ben Hadad of Aram-Damascus (1 Kings 15:20) and by Tiglath-pileser III in 733/32 BCE (2 Kings 15:29).*

Our free eBook Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries brings together the exciting worlds of archaeology and the Bible! Learn the fascinating insights gained from artifacts and ruins, like the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where the Gospel of John says Jesus miraculously restored the sight of the blind man, and the Tel Dan inscription—the first historical evidence of King David outside the Bible.

Despite its early identification as Abel Beth Maacah in the 19th century, Tell Abil el-Qameḥ was never excavated until 2013. Yigael Yadin planned to dig the tell in the 1950s, but opted to investigate Hazor instead. Last summer’s inaugural excavations at Israel’s northernmost site not only uncovered Bronze and Iron Age architectural remains, but also a silver hoard, including five hoop earrings and hacksilber ingots—valued pieces of silver in the pre-coinage era. The precious metal was wrapped in fibrous material inside a small 13th-century B.C.E. jug, though the silver may have been shaped at a later date–the early Iron Age–based on comparisons with other hacksilber finds in the region. While the establishment of an exact chronology at the site will require more than a single excavation season, the 2013 excavation material will surely shed light on the Bronze Age, the period of the Bronze Age collapse and the early Iron Age from the second millennium B.C.E. into the first millennium–an understudied era in what is now northern Israel.

Exhibits/Events

In 1618, the great Flemish artist sir Peter Paul Rubens painted portraits of the three wise men. For the first time in 130 years, these paintings can be viewed together in the exhibit Peter Paul Rubens: The Three Magi Reunited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.